Calm folk remember that many peculiarly
wicked and selfish gentry have been able to make nice rhymes and paint
charming pictures. The old poet Francois Villon, who has made men weep
and sympathize for so many years, was a burglar, a murderer, and
something baser, if possible, than either murderer or burglar. A more
despicable being probably never existed; and yet he warbles with angelic
sweetness, and his piercing sadness thrills us after the lapse of four
centuries. Young men of unrestrained appetites and negative morality are
often able to talk most charmingly, but the meanest and most unworthy
persons whom I have met have been the wild and lofty-minded poets who
perpetually express contempt of Philistines and cast the shaft of their
scorn at what they call "dross." So far as money goes, I fancy that the
oratorical, and grandiose poet is often the most greedy of individuals;
and, when, in his infinite conceit, he sets himself up above common
decency and morality, I find it difficult to confine myself to moderate
language. A man of genius may very well be chaste, modest, unselfish,
and retiring. Byron was at his worst when he was producing the works
which made him immortal; I prefer to think of him as he was when he cast
his baser self away, and nobly took up the cause of Greece.
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